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Nightmare Before Hogwarts

By: USA Tiger

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling. Nightmare before Christmas is the property of Touchstone/Disney and Tim Burton. Corpse Bride is also the property of Tim Burton and Warner Bros. Pictures. Beetlejuice is also property of Tim Burton.

Author note: This chapter has been done for a while but I haven’t gotten it back from my beta yet so I’m guessing she’s super busy with school related stuff so after such a long time I’m finally uploading it and I have been working on the next chapter. I’ve gone over the chapter several times trying to mend up my grammar and spelling errors but we all know I’m not the best at that so please excuse the ones I missed.

This chapter currently unbetaed, when I get the fixed chapter I’ll update it.

Chapter 17

The next morning sunlight from the Jack-o-lantern shaped sun poured into Harry’s room and across his bed, waking the tiny wizard. Harry sat up yawning and rubbing sleepily at his green eyes his messy black hair looking like a bird’s nest on top of his head. He wondered if his Daddy and Uncle Moony found Mr. Padfoot the night before, taking him away from the bad jail. Something shifting and whining at the end of his bed made Harry jump and he pushed himself back against the headboard of his bed. Mr. Bitey jumped in front of him protectively, growling and baring his very sharp teeth and claws at the possible threat.

Wide eyed, Harry looked at the very big black dog lying on the end of his bed. It was bigger than any dog Harry seen before, which wasn’t much since Ripper and Zero were the only dogs he ever really interacted with, but the black dog was way bigger than Aunt Marge’s bull dog Ripper was.

“N-nice doggy?” He said in a quivering voice, hoping that it was true. His experience with dogs was both horrible, thanks to Ripper chasing and biting Harry whenever Marge visited her brother Vernon, and good in the form of his best friend Zero.

Sirius whined softly and let his tail thump against the bed as he pressed himself into the covers trying to make himself look as harmless as possible. He didn’t like seeing his little godson so scared of him, when Harry was a baby he loved to play with him in his dog form, but Harry wouldn’t have any memories of that. He was also a tiny bit freaked out over that toy standing protectively in front of Harry, all teeth and stuffing. It had startled him the night before as well, lunging at him when Sirius first approached the bed, he thought it strange then too but Sirius had been paying more attention to Harry than the killer looking bear.

Harry froze as Sirius wiggled closer to him but… the big dog didn’t look like it wanted to bite him or anything. Taking a chance Harry reached out toward the dog slowly, his little hand trembling in fear. Sirius whined and lifted his snout enough to lick at Harry’s fingers, tail wagging harder as a giggle escaped Harry. Mr. Bitey tried to push his way between Harry and Sirius, growling at the wizard as Harry picked him and pulled him against Harry’s chest.

“You’re a nice doggy aren’t you,” Harry whispered as he moved closer to Sirius so he could pet him. Sirius was ecstatic as he felt Harry’s hang gently run over his head and his matted fur, he couldn’t believe he was here with his godson/. He still had /so many questions about what was going on, but right now just being with Harry was all he cared about.

“I wonder where you came from,” Harry said as he scratched Sirius behind a floppy ear and giggled as one of Sirius’s hind feet kicked at the bed. “I haven’t seen any other doggys here, except for Zero. He’s a ghost dog, he belongs to Mr. Jack but he plays with me all the time. There’s a couple of black cats, some bats and big black birds, but no dogs. Do you belong to Mr. Padfoot?” Sirius woofed and wiggled closer until he could lay his head in Harry’s lap then started a staring contest with Harry’s weird toy bear that glared back at him. Harry giggled again and petted Mr. Bitey on the head.

“Be nice,” he said. “He’s a nice doggy.” Mr. Bitey seemed to grumble but settled down with his arms crossed over his chest and hunched in on himself like he was pouting. Sirius was a bit impressed, he never seen a level of life-likeness in a charmed object before, he wondered who had placed the spell on the toy.

“I found him!” Remus’s sudden voice instantly pulled Sirius out of his Harry-time bliss and his head turned toward the door. Remus stood in the doorway with a fond gentle smile on his face; he looked a little older and a little more wore out. There looked to be a new scar or two on his friend’s face and a bit more gray in his hair. Sirius barked and leaped off the bed, running across the small space and jumping up on Remus. Of course, Sirius’s canine form wasn’t in any form small even as skinny and underfed as it was and he easily knocked over the surprised werewolf. “Ack! Sirius! Stop!”

Remus was laughing as he half hardly attempted to push Sirius off him, Sirius wiggling and jumping like an excited pup that hadn’t seen their favorite person in forever, his tail wagging in overtime and licking Remus’s face. It was damn good to see Sirius still had his playful spirit, that the Dementors and Azkaban hadn’t broken that out of his friend.

“Alright alright!” Remus yelled and pushed Sirius back off of him. “Enough Padfoot!” Sirius finally backed off, prancing in place like any normal excited dog. Remus chuckled and stood up wiping dog slobber off his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “Ugghh, dog breath. Harry, come here.”

Harry slid off his bed with Mr. Bitey tucked under one arm, and ran over to his adopted uncle. Remus picked him with ease and set Harry on his hip.

“When did you get a doggy, Uncle Moony?” Harry asked figuring he was wrong about Sirius’s dog form being a pet of Mr. Padfoot and was really Uncle Moony’s.

“Well he’s not really my dog, cub,” Remus said. Sirius gave him a doggy grin before changing back with a soft pop. Harry gasped in shock and awe, hiding his face against Remus’s neck as he was still shy around new people.

“You wound me, Moony, I thought we had something,” Sirius said with a dramatic flair. Remus rolled his eyes chuckling.

“Goof,” he said fondly.

“Uncle Moony,” Harry whispered as he shyly peeked out at Sirius who was watching them both. “Uncle Mooney, he was a dog.”

“Yes he was, cub,” Remus agreed amused.

“How?” Harry asked insanely curious, he loved seeing magic used.

“Well some people can use their magic to turn into an animal, Harry,” Remus explained.

“Oh… can I do it?” Harry asked. He thought it might be fun to be a puppy or maybe a kitten so he could play with the kitties in the town.

“Maybe one day, it’s a very hard magic to learn. But I’m sure when you’re old enough, your daddy and uncle Padfoot will happily teach you how,” Remus said then looked at Sirius. “Isn’t that right, Paddy?”

“Y-yeah, I’ll help teach you all kind of things,” Sirius instantly agreed giving Harry a smile as the tiny boy shyly looked up at him through his hair that hung in front of his eyes.

“Can you turn into an animal, Uncle Moony?” Harry asked.

“No, cub,” Remus said with a small shake of his head and a small smile. “I’m a werewolf remember? My furry form is my other form, I can’t be an Animagus like the others. Come on, breakfast is waiting. You too, Sirius.” Remus turned and carried Harry toward the stairs.

“Remy, what is going on?” Sirius asked as he followed his friend and godson.

“How much you remember from last night?” Remus asked looking over his shoulder.

“I’m… I’m not sure?” Sirius’s tone was questioning. “A lot of it feels like a dream, I’m not sure how much was real. I remember you but… the rest of it can’t be true. James? That skeleton fellow?”

“Both there, that was Jack by the way,” Remus descended the stairs to the ground floor, one hand on the rail.

“That was the name,” Sirius murmured to himself then looked at Remus again. “But… but… /how?!/”

“Just ask Prongs and Lily yourself,” Remus said with a grin as he turned into the kitchen. Sirius stopped in the doorway, his mouth open in shock as he saw James sitting at the table in the middle of the room and Lily standing at the stove cooking.

“Daddy!” Harry said wiggling to get down and ran over to James who picked him up and sat him in his lap. “Daddy, can I be a puppy? Or a kitten?”

“What brought this question on, Prongslet?” James asked a smile on his face as Harry told him how Sirius had been a really big dog then changed into a person. Sirius just continued to stand in the doorway staring in shock, taking his best friend and best friend’s wife in.

They looked the same as they did the last day he saw them alive on that Halloween morning when he visited. James wore the same dark blue knitted jumper and tanned slacks, his round wire framed glasses perched on his nose. Hair was still the same messy black mop that was shared by his son, eyes still a bright hazel behind his glasses. Lily wore a long sleeve blue top and black jeans, her fiery red hair swept over her shoulders. The only different between then and now were their skin tones. James and Lily skin had a blue tint to it, James a little darker then Lily’s.

“How…” Sirius said softly.

“Oh for Merlin’s sakes, sit down before you fall down, Sirius,” Lily said pointing at a chair with a spatula. “And drink those, they’ll help you heal.” Sirius sat down heavily at the chair Lily had pointed at and looked down in front of him. There were a couple of vials of potions sitting next to a cup of hot chocolate. When Lily gave him a pointed look Sirius grabbed the vials, popped off the tops, then swallowed the contents of both vials with a grimace. He immediately picked up the cup of hot cocoa to chase away the lingering taste.

“Ugh, that’s nasty,” he said.

“But it will help you recover,” Lily told him, setting out a plate of soft scrambled eggs and a small bowl of porridge in front of him. Having nothing but tasteless gruel for years the food tasted like heaven.

Sirius lifted his eyes and watched the others between bites of his breakfast. Harry was sitting in a chair now next to James who was regaling him with tales of running around as a stag with Sirius as a dog. The tiny boy was enraptured by the story looking up at his father with awe. Remus was chuckling and adding in his two cents telling Harry about an awkward Prongs who got his antlers stuck in a tree branch one time.

It was… so normal. How he might have imagined it so long ago before they heavily got involved in the war or trying to imagine a perfect world where Harry could grow up safe and loved like any other wizarding child instead of hiding from an insane over powered dark lord. Yet, Sirius knew this shouldn’t be possible! His mind was working overtime trying to puzzle out how James and Lily were there when he knew they should be dead and buried in the ground.

Lily watched Sirius out of the corner of her eye, watching the range of emotions on Sirius’s face as he attempted to wrap his head around what was going on. She was content to let him settle a bit before they began explaining though she would wait until Harry was out of the room before she grilled him to find out why he hadn’t taken Harry after they died and instead had gone chasing after Peter.

‘Oh yes,’ Lily thought to herself as she took a sip of her morning tea. ‘He’s got a lot to explaining to do about that.’

Lily and James didn’t need to eat or drink; it was just one of those things that came with being dead. But just because they didn’t need it didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy it. There was always food and drink aplenty in the Land of the Dead, Bonejangle’s club had some of the best spirits that could be found underground, and the dead liked to spend their time drinking and swapping stories of the land of the living. Sleep was also a nice guilty pleasure that wasn’t needed but didn’t stop many of the dead from taking a nice long nap just because they could.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said finally having reached the end of his rope. “But just what is going on? How? I mean, aren’t you…”

“Dead?” Lily finished for him ignoring the flinch that came from Sirius.

“Y-yeah,” Sirius agreed. James sighed and pushed his half empty plate away, propping his elbows on the table and giving Sirius a very serious look.

“The afterlife is nothing like anyone thought it was,” James started with, retelling the tale of his and Lily’s time in the Land of the Dead, Harry finding his way to Halloween Town, and the town’s leader Jack coming to find him and Lily to offer them a new home with their son. How they had made rooms for Remus and Sirius then finishing off with how they came up with the plans to get Sirius out of Azkaban.

At some point during the explanation, Remus had taken Harry out of the room to get washed up and dressed for the day. Both had already heard or lived through the tale and right now Sirius needed this time with the elder Potters.

“Bloody hell… that’s amazing,” Sirius said once James had finished. “I would almost think all this was something the Dementors put in my head somehow but it seems too real to be a hallucination.”

“It’s not a hallucination,” Lily said as she laid a gentle hand on Sirius’s arm and gave it a gentle comforting squeeze. Sirius noticed her flesh was cool, cold even without the warmth of life. Yet it was still warmer than the chill that still lingered from his time in Azkaban. Tears pooled at the corners of Sirius’s gray eyes and he bowed his head.

“James, Lily, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” he said. He had wanted to say those words for years, since that horrible Halloween night. James rolled his eyes and moved to the chair on Sirius’s other side.

“No it’s not, Padfoot,” James said.

“Yes it is,” Sirius argued as he looked up at his best friend frowning. “/I’m/ the one who suggested you switch keepers so I’m the one who-“

“Oh for goodness sakes, Sirius,” Lily interrupted with a roll of her eyes. “Do you think we’re incapable of telling you no? We agreed with your idea, it wasn’t a bad one honestly.”

“The only ones we can blame for our deaths are ‘Who-know-who’ and Peter,” James agreed with his wife. “Peter was the one who sold us out and He’s the one who killed us.”

“But… but…” Sirius had a hard time letting go of the blame. He should have never suggested the switch to start with; he would have died first before giving away the Potter’s location.

“If you’re to blame then we are too,” Lily commented she as stood up and started gathering dishes to put in the sink to wash later. Sirius looked confused for a second.

“Wait, what? Just how are you to blame?” he asked.

“Easy, we trusted Peter as much as you did. We all trusted Peter, both us and those in the Order,” Lily explained with her hands on her hips. “I don’t think /anyone/, including Dumbledore, suspected Peter.”

“Pettigrew put on a good innocent act,” James agreed in a tone that said he wished he didn’t. “We’re so use to him staying in the background and keeping out of trouble, we forgot he did his share of pranks back when we were at Hogwarts and never got caught.”

“We had no reason not to trust him,” Lily added. “And he seemed so loyal to James and you, why wouldn’t we trust him.” Sirius could see what his friends were trying to say, they had all trusted Wormtail and had gone along with Sirius’s suggestion of switching secret keepers with no fuss. It did relieve some of the grief Sirius held to know James and Lily didn’t blame him but deep down Sirius still felt he was at fault. “But there is one thing I would like to know,” Lily said in a tone that had an edge to it. Sirius swallowed feeling the danger in the air.

“And… umm… what is that?” he asked. Lily leaned against the table staring Sirius straight in the eye.

“I want to know why you didn’t take Harry, your godson /my baby/, after we died and went chasing after Pettigrew instead,” she demanded. Sirius gave a mirthless laugh and crossed his arms over his chest, hunching into himself a bit.

“I didn’t want to leave Harry, Merlin knows I would have taken him if I could, but I didn’t want him to get hurt if I tired,” he said.

“Okay, I think you better start at the beginning,” James said. He wanted to know just as much as Lily did as to why Sirius didn’t take Harry and why he ended up at Lily’s bitch of a sister’s house. “Tell us what happened after we died.”

“You don’t know?” Sirius asked. James and Lily had only explained a little bit about the Land of the Dead, they had not said whether or not the dead were able to watch the living.

“No, one moment I was fighting off Him trying to give Lily time to run to safety with Harry, then I had a killing curse tossed at me then next I thing I know I’m in Bonejangles’s place,” James explained.

“The same for me, that bastard killed me after I refused to move out of the way,” Lily sat back down with a sigh. “Then I’m in the afterlife. What little we know we got from other witches and wizards that passed after us.”

“Oh…” Sirius said then sighed as he leaned forward clasping his hands in front of him, starting his tale. “You remember that morning right? I visited the cottage, played with Harry and updated you on what was going on.”

“Yeah, we remember that,” James said.

“Well after I left, nothing really happened. I ran a few errands for Dumbledore and the Order, things like that. That night I went to go check on Peter, it had been a couple of days since I heard from him and wanted to see how he was holding up,” Sirius continued then sighed heavily as he buried his face into his hands. “When I got to Peter’s home, it was dark and the door swung open when I pressed on it. I called his name but never got an answer. The house was cold, like no one had been there for a couple of days. There were no clues anywhere what had happen to him and I started to worry. Then… I felt it… I felt the magic of the fidelius charm just… just snap. And I knew something had happened and I needed to get to Potter’s Cottage.

“I knew I couldn’t apparate, I was so worried that I knew I would splinch myself if I tried so I jumped on my bike and gunned it, racing to the house. Merlin, it was awful,” Sirius’s voice was thick with grief, James placed his hand on Sirius’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. Sirius swallowed past the lump in his throat and forced himself to continue. “The roof of the house was half gone, most of the damage was over where Harry’s room was. I jumped off my bike and ran to the door, screaming your names. That’s when Hagrid came out of the house.”

“Hagrid?” James asked leaning back in surprise.

“What was Hagrid doing there?” Lily questioned just as confused.

“I asked him the same thing, he said Dumbledore sent him to get Harry,” Sirius explained. “He told me you two were,” here Sirius swallowed in remembered grief again, “gone. That’s when I saw Harry in his arms, alive and blinking sleepily as he looked around. When he saw me, he started reaching for me and saying ‘Padfoot’ in that really adorable way of his. I reached up to take Harry from Hagrid but he just pulled Harry away from me.

“I said ‘Hagrid, give me Harry. He’s my godson, I have to look after him now.’ Or something like that, but he kept insisting that he needed to take Harry to Dumbledore. That’s when I saw the look in Hagrid’s eyes and /knew/; he wasn’t going to let me take Harry. You know Hagrid, he wears his heart on his sleeve and can’t keep any emotions off his face, he thought I was the secret keeper and had sold you two out to Voldy-butt. I don’t blame him, that was the whole point of switching keepers, so people would believe I was the one protecting you three and come after me.”

“Hagrid should have known you would never betray us like that,” James said with a shake of his head.

“So he wouldn’t give you Harry at all?” Lily asked. Sirius shook his head, his tangled greasy hair swinging with the motion.

“No, he made sure to keep Harry out of my reach and wouldn’t give the pup to me no matter how much Harry reached out to me or called for me. And what was I suppose to do? Fling spells at Hagrid to get him to drop Harry? He’s a half giant, he’s pretty resistant to a lot of spells and I didn’t want to chance hitting Harry,” he said with a deep huffing sigh.

“Why didn’t you just go with Hagrid to Dumbledore, explain that we had switched,” James asked.

“It never crossed my mind, never had a chance to think really. While I was arguing with Hagrid, I saw Peter out of the corner of my eye,” Sirius growled softly. “I saw that he looked unharmed except the fact he was clutch at his arm like it pained him. His left arm. That’s when I knew, he hadn’t been captured and forced to give up your location he had done so willing. Suddenly it all made sense; he was the one who was traitor not Remus. He was the one who gave away so much information that ended up killing so many people we knew. Those meetings of the Order of the Phoenix that we thought he wasn’t there, he had to have snuck in and spied on us in his rat form.

“The secrecy, all the times Peter was nervous, all the times he was ‘visiting’ his Mum…” Sirius shook his head, his lip curling into a snarl. “He was the one who first suggested that Remus might be the spy to me. I didn’t believe him at first, but he kept pushing and some of the stuff he said made so much sense at the time but… looking back on it, it was pretty clear it was him the whole time.”

“We pretty much had the same clarity dawn on us, after we arrived in the Land of the Dead,” James said with a sigh as he rubbed at his forehead.

“Yeah… I don’t know why Pettigrew stuck around until then but as soon as he noticed I had seen him, he apparated away,” Sirius continued on. “I don’t think Hagrid even heard the crack of apparition that rat made, not over Harry’s cries and his own words of getting Harry to the Headmaster. I knew I had to go after Pettigrew before he fled England completely; I was the only one left who knew about the switch. So I told Hagrid to take my bike and use it to get Harry to Dumbledore, I assumed that Dumbledore would get Harry to Alice and Frank since Alice is Harry’s godmother, then I went after Peter.”

Lily was still fuming a bit, she thought Sirius should have at least gone to Dumbledore but things were chaotic at that time and at least Sirius hadn’t just up and abandoned Harry without least trying to take responsibility for his godchild. And Sirius was right; Harry could have been hurt by accident if he had fought with Hagrid as stubborn as the gentle half giant was being about keeping Harry away from Sirius.

“It took me hours to track Wormtail down, I had to dodge Aurors who were attempting to arrest me for being a Death Eater or in some cases straight up kill me,” Sirius had carried on with his tale. “Until finally I shook off the Aurors chasing me and cornered Wormy on a busy street with muggles.”

“That was when he blew up the street,” James assumed.

“You heard about that then?” Sirius asked in a tired tone.

“It wasn’t until a few days afterward we learned about it, the same time we learned people thought you were the one who betrayed us and had been tossed into that awful prison,” Lily said. “We found some of the muggles who had been killed and asked them what happened, they told us about the argument and Peter blowing the street up. And cutting off his finger.”

“So I assume Peter wasn’t there with you guys,” Sirius rubbed the side of his face. “I was never completely sure if he killed himself or not.”

“No, Peter’s wasn’t there,” James agreed. Sirius sighed with a shake of his head.

“That traitorous rat is still alive then and still out there somewhere,” he said.

“And we have no way of knowing where, until he shows himself,” James agreed.

“I’m still angry about what happened but having all the facts and knowing the hell you went through afterward, I can forgive you,” Lily said. “Dumbledore not so much.”

“Why? What did he do?” Sirius asked confused.

“Harry’s been living with Petunia,” James explained, in telling Sirius of just how Harry found Halloween Town, he never said just where or with who Harry was living with at the time. Sirius frowned to himself then looked at Lily confused.

“Your sister? The one you told us was so awful to you cause you’re a witch?” he asked. “Why the bloody hell would Harry go there?! I knew he didn’t end up with Frank and Alice, not after Bellatrix,the Lestrange brothers and Barty Jr. were tossed into cells next to me at chez-Azkaban, but your muggle sister? Why?”

“That’s just it, we don’t know,” James said with a sigh as he rubbed his forehead.

“Remus told us he was always told Harry was living someplace he would be safe and wouldn’t have the fame of being the ‘Boy-who-lived’ putting constant pressure on him, making him as big-headed as James use to be,” Lily said. “Or something like that.”

“But… but… your sister hates magic! And she’s still with that fat muggle isn’t she? Didn’t you say he was worse?” Sirius gestured wildly.

“Vernon certainly was and is a bastard,” James agreed.

“Yeah, so why would the Headmaster put the pup with them? You’ve always talked about how bad your sister was,” Sirius asked. Lily sighed and rubbed her face tiredly.

“Well do be fair, I’ve never discussed my issues with Petunia with Dumbledore or any of our old professors,” she rationalizes reluctantly. “So it could be he just didn’t know.” James snorted softly, his lip curled in anger.

“Doesn’t matter if you told him or not, it says in black and white on our wills that Harry was to never go anywhere near your sister or her family,” he pointed out. “We both had a whole list of people who was to raise Harry, our old Headmaster either never read our wills or just ignored what we had wanted. I’m more inclined to believe the former only due to the fact that Sirius wouldn’t have gone to prison since we stated that we had switched keepers.”

“When did you do that?” Sirius asked as his mind tried to work over this new information.

“The morning we set the charm,” Lily started to explain, “we let early to Gringotts to update our wills. Neither of us wanted to leave anything to chance.”

“Fat lot of good it did us,” James grunted in anger. Lily sighed but agreed with her husband.

“Merlin, what a mess,” Sirius said with a sigh as he rubbed his face with both hands tiredly. James sighed, stood, then clasped Sirius’s shoulder.

“It’s a lot to take in, and you’re recovering from Azkaban,” he said. “There’s more to tell you but let’s not dump it all on you at once. Why don’t head up for a kip, if you were sleeping in Harry’s room you couldn’t have gotten much sleep.”

“I want a hot bath more,” Sirius said. “I’ve got years of Azkaban on me and I know I look horrible.”

“There’s the old vain Padfoot I know,” James said laughing.

“The bathroom is on the first floor,” Lily told Sirius as she also stood. “I’m going to go rescue Harry from Remus, I’m sure he’s been keeping Harry distracted while we talked.”

“Good ol’ Moony,” Sirius laughed as he pushed away from the table and stood up with a groan. The last few years of abuse was starting to get to him and a real hot shower was so appealing. And he needed time to think, to come to terms with everything he learned today and time under a hot shower was just the ticket.